United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres on Sunday called for an immediate defusion and de-escalation in the ‘Middle East’, saying that the region was on the ‘brink’.
The call came as tensions worsened in the region after Iran launched a barrage of missiles towards Israel in response to an attack on its consulate in Syria.
Israel said 185 drones, 110 surface-to-surface missiles, and 36 cruise missiles were fired at the country in what Tehran dubbed Operation Honest Promise.
Most of the weapons were launched from Iran and a small proportion from Iraq and Yemen.
“The Middle East is on the brink. The people of the region are confronting a real danger of a devastating full-scale conflict. Now is the time to defuse and de-escalate. Now is the time for maximum restraint. Now is the time to step back from the brink,” Guterres posted from his official X handle.
Meanwhile, a senior US military official said the US assessed there was “no significant damage within Israel itself” after Iran’s missile and drone barrage, CNN reported.
Israeli military spokesperson Daniel Hagari appeared to echo the assessment on Sunday, saying that out of hundreds of rockets launched from Iran, only a few penetrated Israel, causing minor damage to the infrastructure at Nevatim airbase near the runway and to a road in the Hermon region.
Nevatim remained fully functional, and planes continued take-off and land to fulfil their missions, he said.
CNN reported that US President Joe Biden told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over a phone call on Sunday that he should consider Saturday a ‘win’ because Iran’s attacks had been largely unsuccessful and demonstrated Israel’s superior military capability, a senior administration official said.
John Kirby, the national security spokesman at the White House, said the ability to prevent widespread damage was a demonstration of Israel’s “military superiority” and proof that Iran was not the “military power that they claim to be.”
“This was an incredible success, really proving Israel’s military superiority and just as critically, their diplomatic superiority, that they have friends in the region, that they have around the world that are willing to help them,” Kirby told CNN’s Jake Tapper on ‘State of the Union’.
